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A)How to Clear the LED Bang Lights

1) Restart the Blade System Management Processor. On the BladeCenter AMM,

navigate to Blade Tasks > Power/Restart. Select your blade and click Restart Blade

System Mgmt Processor. Don’t worry. Your blade will continue running.

My result: The Blade Center errors (errors 3 and 4, above)

2) Check for errors. BladeCenter AMM > Event Log.

AIX# errpt

My result: I found no errors.

3) Restart Management Module. BladeCenter AMM > MM Control > Restart MM.

This will cause you to lose connection to the BladeCenter. Your blade servers will

continue running.

My result: the physical chasis LED turned off. Bang light #1, on the physical blade

remained. I had to schedule an outage and clear the NVRAM.

How to Clear NVRAM on a System P Blade Server

1) Schedule an outage.

2) Click Restart Blade and clear NVRAM, if you have this option. It should be in

BladeCenter AMM > Blade Tasks > Power/Restart. Look on the bottom of the page. I,

unfortunately, didn’t have this option. I just had Restart Blade. I restarted my blade for kicks.

My result: No dice. Still no errors. Error light 1, on my physical blade remained on.

3) Power off the server. It should be in the Power/Restart screen of your Blade Center.

4) Remove the battery from the server for five minutes. Slide out the blade, open theserver, attach an anti-static wristband (if you worry about these things), and remove the

nickel-sized battery. A small flathead screwdriver would be useful.

Warning: This will reset any custom BIOS settings, return you to the orginal BIOSfirmware level, and reset your time clock. If you pretty much use default settings, likeme, you’d probably be fine.

5) Open up a console window. If you’re using a JS20 or JS21, you’ll need these

instructions. Otherwise, if you have a graphics card, you can use the BladeCenter 

Remote Control.

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6) Put the server back together and power it up.

7) Follow the prompt and press 0 to select the console on your console window,. This

is a good indication that the NVRAM has been cleared.

My result as it was booting: The physical blade LED turned off. But error lights 2, 3,and 4 all turned back on. This was like a bad joke.

8) Reset the time when you can log in.

The time command to set it for Aug 13 (0813), 6:52 pm (1852), 2008 (08):

AIX# time 0813185208

9) Wait for everything to come up. This is a good time to double check the error logsagain.

10) Restart the Blade System Management Processor again. On the BladeCenter 

AMM, navigate to Blade Tasks > Power/Restart. Select your blade and click Restart

Blade System Mgmt Processor.

My result: All LED bang lights turned off. Finally.

Tags: AIX 5.3, Bang Lights, How to Clear NVRAM on IBM Series P Server , how to

reset BladeCenter LED, JS21 bang lights, JS21 Blade

Posted in AIX, IBM BladeCenter | No Comments »

How Do I Install AIX 64-bit?

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 

The simple answer is you don’t. You install AIX normally, which by default

installs a 32-bit kernel (at least 32-bit is default for AIX 5.3). Then you change your 

kernel and reboot.

I have AIX running on top of (as a client partition of) Virtual I/O (VIO) Server, which isIBM’s virtualization version of VMware. Does VIO server allow 64-bit client OS

installs? Yes.

Does My System Support AIX 64-bit?

Check whether your kernel is currently 32-bit:

AIX# bootinfo -K 

32

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Your AIX version must be 5.1 or above:

AIX# oslevel

5.3.0

Verify that your hardware supports 64 bits:

AIX# bootinfo -y

64

How to Change Your 32-bit AIX Kernel to 64-bit

1) Create/overwrite your links to the Unix kernel:

ln -sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_64 /unix

ln -sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_64 /usr/lib/boot/unix

2) Verify:ls -l /unix

ls -l /usr/lib/boot/unix

lsvg -l rootvg

3) Create your boot image and restart:

lslv -m hd5

 bosboot -ad /dev/ipldeviceshutdown -Fr 

 Note: If you have LSOF installed, make sure you’re running the 64-bit version. Check 

out the last part of my How to Install LSOF post.

4) After you reboot, verify your OS Kernel:

 bootinfo -K 

How to Revert Back from 64-bit to 32-bit:

From 64-bit to 32-bit:

ln -sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_mp /unixln -sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_mp /usr/lib/boot/unix

lslv -m hd5 bosboot -ad /dev/ipldevice

shutdown -Fr 

Tags: 32-bit, 64-bit, AIX 5.3,  bootinfo, bosboot, osleve, VIO, VIOS, Virtual I/O Server 

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How to Install LSOF on AIX

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Friday, August 1st, 2008 

The LSOF command, which lists open files, shows the processes connected to a

 particular file. It’s a very useful command.

The name’s a little bit misleading. But remember, Unix treats everything (devices,filesystems) as files. So think of lsof as the command to “show the process that’s using a

 particular resource”.

Example of Using lsof 

For example, I’d like to unmount /dev/cd0, which is on /mnt. But I can’t unmount, because I’m in the /mnt directory:

AIX# cd /mnt

AIX# umount /mnt

umount: 0506-349 Cannot unmount /dev/cd0: The requested resource is busy.

Suppose I didn’t realize my shell is keeping the /mnt directory busy. But the LSOFcommand can verify that it’s my bash session preventing the umount:

AIX# lsof /mnt

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME

 bash 975102 root cwd VDIR 15,0 /mnt (/dev/cd0)

AIX# cd /

AIX# umount /mnt

Steps to Install lsof on AIX

1) Obtain the fileset. It’s in the AIX 5L V5.3 Expansion Pack  which shipped with your 

AIX system. Supposedly, you can call IBM and they will ship you the CDs if you have

support with them. Otherwise, try downloading it from their website. I had to create anIBM login to get the file I needed.

I personally installed this using the CDs, so those are the instructions I’m giving.

2) Insert CD, “AIX Expansion Pack”

3) Run SMIT

AIX# smit

4) Navigate to Install Software

Software Installation and Maintenance > Install and Update Software > Install Software

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5) Specify your device as your CD (i.e. /dev/cd0)

6) Scroll to SOFTWARE to install. Press F4 or esc+4.

7) Find lsof.base and lsof.man.en_US. Select these using F7 or esc+7

8) Hit enter a few times and it should install in /usr/sbin/lsof.

9) Test the command as root:

AIX# lsof 

Uh-Oh. lsof: FATAL: compiled for a kernel of 32 bit size.

You have a 64-bit machine. You’re running the 32-bit version. It’s okay. You probablyhave both versions installed. To check:

AIX# lsof64

If that command runs without any errors:

AIX# which lsof /usr/sbin/lsof 

AIX# cd /usr/sbin

AIX# mv lsof lsof32

AIX# ln -s lsof64 lsof 

AIX# lsof 

Tags: AIX 5.3, IBM, lsof , lsof.base, umount

Posted in AIX, Unix | 1 Comment »

How to Upgrade Mirrored IBM AIX with Minimal Disruption

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 

AIX provides a very nice way to upgrade the OS while the system us up. It will require

two reboots, but the time consuming parts can be done first. This is the process I used to

upgrade AIX 5.3, technology level (TL) 4 to AIX 5.3 TL7.

0. Backup the OS

AIX# mksysb

1. Download updates. I downloaded it to an NFS-mounted filer, and it worked okay.

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2. See which hdisks are in rootvg. In my case, hdisk0 and hdisk1 were part of rootvg.

AIX# lsvg

AIX# lspvAIX# lspv -l disk1

AIX# lspv -l disk0

3. Remove one disk from the rootvg mirror:

AIX# unmirrorvg -c 1 rootfg hdisk0 #this unmirrors hdisk0, hdisk1 remains

AIX# reducevg rootvg hdisk0 # this removes hdisk0 from rootvg complete. Don’t use -dor -f 

AIX# lspv -l hdisk0 #check to ensure hdisk0 is free

4. Install upgrade on the free disk. This takes a while (1-2 hours for me). This command

copies rootvg (hdisk1) to hdisk0, and then applies the updates to disk0:

AIX# alt_disk_copy -d hdisk0 -b update_all -l

5. Reboot. This will boot off of hdisk0; hdisk0’s volume group will be renamed

old_rootvg. Test and verify it works. Check OS level after reboot:

AIX# oslevel -r 

If everything works properly, re-sync mirrors on rootvg

You can leave things in the two-disk state for a while. I left it for a few days. Once you’re

sure you want to keep the changes, re-sync the mirrors.

IBM’s document on mirroring rootvg:

http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1000358

AIX# alt_rootvg_op -X old_rootvg #This removes old_rootvg; hdisk1 is now accessable

AIX# extendvg rootvg hdisk1 #Add hdisk1 to rootvg; I had to use the -f force optionAIX# mirrorvg rootvg

Rebuild boot list; add hdisk0 and hdisk1 to bootlist; and reboot to disable the quorum:

AIX# bosboot -aAIX# bootlist -m normal hdisk0 hisk1AIX# reboot

Search for your disk (hdisk1 for me) in the boot log:

AIX# alog -o -t boot | less

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Look at boot order:

 bootlist -m normal -o #shows boot order 

If things don’t look right, boot off of old_rootvg

Boot off of the old_rootvg disk (hdisk1). After a reboot, you should be able to see rootvg

(which was the old one) and alt_rootvg (the new one that didn’t work).

Check which disk is in which vg, edit the boot order to make hdisk1 first, and thenreboot:

AIX# lspv

AIX# bootlist -m normal -o hdisk1 hdisk0

AIX# rebootAIX# oslevel –r 

B) How to check AIX 5.x kernel bit (32 bit/64 bit):

In AIX 5.x, you have options to choose a 32-bit or 64-bit kernel and it is important to know that both 32-bit

and 64-bit kernel supports running 64-bit applications. Both 32 bit and 64 bit kernel also support advance

JFS2 filesystem and large filesystem. But it's is always good to have 64-bit kernel even though you have 32-

bit applications to run on newer hardware. New p-series server has better performance running 64-bit kernel

as we have benchmarked on our production servers.64 bit kernel in AIX provides better JFS2 performance

and it support large memory up to 96 GB.

If you have plan to configure your p-series to run large memory (96 GB) and want to use JFS2 filesystem

you should use 64-bit kernel on AIX.If you want to run only 32 bit applications then you can decide to run

 AIX kernel in 32-bit mode.

Now question is How to check on your AIX 5.x server if your system is 32bit or 64 bit enabled. All aix

machines since RS/6000 H70 are 64 bit. To check if your AIX hardware is enabled to run 32 bit or 64 bit

kernel you can run bootinfo –y :

#bootinfo -y

The bootinfo –K command returns the current kernel bit mode, it returns value in integer format as 32 or 64:

#bootinfo –K64

Running svmon –p <pid> returns information if your application process is running in 32 bit or 64 bit mode. If 

your AIX kernel is running in 32bit mode you can switch to 64 bit mode, but you need to make sure you have

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bos.mp64 fileset is already installed. Here is how you can change your AIX kernel from 32 bit to 64 bit

mode:

#ln –sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_64 /unix#ln –sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_64 /usr/lib/boot/unix#bosboot –ak /usr/lib/boot/unix_64

#shutdown -Fr

Once server is rebooted ,AIX kernel will be changed to 64 bit mode.

C) How to check memory in AIX 5.x 

 AIX is different beast as compared to other UNIX operating system out there. For 

checking memory on AIX 5.x there are different commands available:

1. Check memory on AIX using bootinfo command which is similar to dmesg on Solaris

from command line.This will display real memory in kilobytes(KB):#bootinfo -r

2. Also you can use lsattr command to find the real memory size:

#lsattr -El sys0 -a realmem

3. Memory size in AIX can also be checked using getconf command available in AIX 5L

and AIX 5.2 onwards:

#getconf REAL_MEMORY

NOTE: REAL_MEMORY is one of the AIX system wide configuration parameter and

should be used as Upper case.